On Growth and Form Almeida Opera, Institute of Child Health, London July 8, 2003
Tansy Davies Genome and student collaborations
Composers Ensemble/Christopher Nash

An elaborate collaborative venture between film students at the Royal College of Arts & six student composers at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music was probably great fun for those involved, and for their teachers, but for the rest of us the outcome seemed a poor reward for a lot of effort and all that the elaborate programme appeared to promise.

It was disconcerting to find the video creations naive, most of them to a level of near-banality. It seemed that the technical skills of those involved did not match their theoretical constructs, as set out in a mass of small print which did them proud, even though, with the usual changes of order and fashionably low lighting, it was impossible to read & sort out during the succession of short pieces, all scored for violin & double bass, clarinets and bassoons, trumpet and trombone - i.e. Stravinsky's line-up for Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale minus percussion.

With the air conditioning apparently inaccessible on a Sunday night, one sweltered in steadily mounting heat, which reminded oldsters of the good old days at Covent Garden in the Gods, where as students we had our (inexpensive) initiation into the wonders of Opera.

Coordinating the starts foundered twice, and the whole event was disconcertingly amateurish, saved only by the one substantial musical work by an established composer, whose reputation is growing apace.

Tansy Davies' 23 mins Genome was based upon a long melodic line suggesting a DNA strand, evolving and transforming into different forms, its material sometimes 'treated canonically and placed on top of itself at different speeds'. I thought it a very viable concert work, regrettably not improved by the association with Zara Matthews' images.

Genome spoke a language recognisably close to that of her recent Fern for winds including cor anglais, bass clarinet and contra-bassoon plus percussion, greatly admired at Blackheath. I look forward to hearing both Fern and Genome again soon.